When a young McDonald’s employee told a coworker in March that he might get his gun and “air this place out,” the remark was “very stupid” and disruptive, a prosecutor said, but it didn’t amount to a felony crime.

Blaine Duzan, a 20-year-old Powell resident, was initially charged with a felony count of terroristic threats for the comment. Last week, however, the county attorney’s office agreed to reduce it to a misdemeanor count of breach of peace and Duzan agreed to plead guilty.

He assured the Park County Circuit Court that, “I will not be saying anything like that again.”

Duzan was ordered to pay $820, credited for the three days he served in jail after his arrest and placed on six months of unsupervised probation.

Fitting the charge to behavior

To convict Duzan of terroristic threats, prosecutors would have had to show he intended to or recklessly disregarded the risk of causing the evacuation of a building or of causing serious public inconvenience. Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Ericka Smith said she didn’t believe she could prove that in court.

“While breach of peace doesn’t sound like much of a charge after behavior like this and the actions that law enforcement had to take to ensure the safety of the community, it is in fact the charge that fits the behavior,” Smith said at the 19 May hearing.

She added that she doesn’t believe Duzan is a danger to the community.

For his part, Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah said he didn’t believe Duzan intended for his comments to be a threat and didn’t think they rose to the level of a felony. However, Darrah noted that just a day before the sentencing, two teens shot and killed three people at a San Diego mosque before killing themselves.

“It happens every couple weeks, people follow through on these threats, and that’s the environment, unfortunately,” the judge said.

The judge told Duzan to watch what he says.

“You do have a First Amendment right to express your feelings and do those things,” Darrah said, “but you got to be careful when it starts to look like it’s a threat.”

During the hearing, Smith said that both her office and law enforcement “will continue to take behavior like this very seriously,” because “there’s no other way to know if there’s an actual threat.”

‘Just some dumb comments’

Court records and testimony say Duzan had become upset while working at the Powell McDonald’s on the evening of March 10. After being told he might have to stay late if the restaurant got busy, he reportedly told a coworker that, “I might as well just bring my Glock tomorrow and air this place out, starting with [the shift manager].”

The manager sent Duzan home after learning of the comment and the coworker who’d heard the remark contacted Powell police. Both the coworker and manager told police they believed Duzan was serious and were concerned, noting he’d recently purchased a handgun, Officer Matt Koritinik wrote in an affidavit.

Officers arrested Duzan at his house the following morning, as he was preparing to drive to work. He was cooperative with police, admitting that he’d made the comment and telling them it wasn’t intended as a threat; Duzan noted that he’d left his firearm in his house inside a gun case.

During last week’s sentencing, Duzan’s court-appointed attorney, Tim Blatt, said that, “obviously, when you made those comments, you weren’t actually planning on following through with that, it was just some dumb comments that were made in an inappropriate time, correct?” 

Duzan agreed, also acknowledging his comment could have and did cause a disruption.

Shared blame?

Duzan lost his job over the incident and it took him a few weeks to find another, he said, which was “just very hard.”

Blatt cited those circumstances in arguing for a suspended fine, but Smith said a fine was appropriate, noting Duzan’s unemployment resulted from his own behavior.

Smith added that the McDonald’s manager “was terrified, and rightfully so,” and that law enforcement “spent a great deal of time preparing for his arrest in the event he was armed and heading back to McDonald’s.”

In response, Duzan agreed that “stupid actions get dumb consequences,” but contended the manager wasn’t actually scared by his remarks and had been out to get him.

That prompted Darrah to interject.

“How is that an excuse for what you did?” he asked.

Duzan responded that it wasn’t an excuse and that he fully took the blame for what he’d said. However, he said the blame for wasting the police department’s time was shared “50-50” between him and the manager, “because I know for a fact that she knew that there was nothing serious like that.”

Darrah took offense to Duzan’s remarks, noting the hearing was about his conduct. Because he was “pointing the finger at somebody else,” the judge fined Duzan $200 more than he had originally planned.

Darrah also said he hoped the young man had learned from the incident.